Download (2006). "What is Ethical in Archaeology? An Analysis of Ethical

What is Ethical in Archaeology? An Analysis of Codes,
Value and Reasoning in Archaeological Ethics
Quetzil E. Castañeda
The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology
and the University of Washington
Manuscript Submission to American Anthropologist
August 12, 2005
2244 Martha Street
Bloomington, IN 47408
812-336-2050
[email protected]
www.osea-cite.org
Abstract
The provocation of the title of this essay is based on the common, everyday conflation and
confusion of ethics and politics. In avoiding the conflation of ethics and politics, this essay
develops an appropriate set of tools and concepts by which to analyze ethics in archaeology.
The tools used to discuss these aspects of ethics are generally missing from current
discussions in archaeology and anthropology generally. Different archaeological codes of
ethics are analyzed in terms of their moral logics, ethical reasoning, focal points, and
principles or criteria of value (axiologies). The goal is to draw out the tension between three
sets of opposing elements, that is, between scientific and social criteria of value, a deontic
(duty-based) and consequentialist reasoning, and between normative morality and
situationalist ethics. The essay contributes a framework for discussing ethics and analyses
of ethics that may provoke new directions for discussion.
[ Key words: axiology, scientific morality, espionage, situationalist ethics, metaethics ]
Acknowledgements. This paper is indebted to Marvin Cohodas for his invitation to participate
in the Vancouver conference on ethics of Maya archaeology. This was an opportunity to
develop my long standing interests on ethics. This work has also benefited from the
comments and discussion with Juan Castillo Cocom, Patricia Fortuny Loret de Mola, Jorge
Ortiz, Victor Olalde, Rebeca Pat, Anne Pyburn, Rick Wilk, and Jennifer Telesca.
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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What is Ethical in Archaeology? An Analysis of Codes, Value
and Reasoning in Archaeological Ethics
“Nothing?” “Everything?” The provocation of the title of this essay is based on the
common, everyday conflation and confusion of ethics and politics. Indeed, ethics is a difficult
topic to discuss. There is the ever present risk that statements about ethics are expressed for
political purposes, or are interpreted as such. Either derived from or contributing to this
machiavellian situation is that our discussions leave too much assumed and implicit about the
ethics that we critique or advocate. In archaeology, as in anthropology generally, the assertion of
values—or the cultural analysis of political implications and consequences—typically substitutes
for the ethical analysis of actions and, especially, the analysis of ethics. In seeking to avoid the
conflation of ethics and politics, this essay is neither apologia nor diatribe. I am not concerned to
either defend or disparage the ethical integrity of archaeology. Rather, the goal is to use an
appropriate set of tools and issues to discuss ethics. Using concepts that are mostly absent in
current discussions (see e.g., Fleuhr-Lobban 2003b; Lynot 1997; Lynot and Wylie 1995;
Mcdowell-Loudan 1994; Pels 1999; Zimmerman, Vitelli, and Hollowell-Zimmer 2003), I
analyze different archaeological codes of ethics in terms of their moral logics, ethical reasoning,
focal points, and principles or criteria of value (axiologies).1 The goal is to draw out the tension
between three sets of opposing elements, that is, between scientific and social criteria of value,
deontic (duty-based) and consequentialist reasoning, and normative morals and situationalist
ethics. This discussion leads out to a consideration of the possibility of an ethics of
interpretation that would be distinct from a morality of representation.
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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Analysis of Ethics
Tthe field of moral philosophy is typically divided into three domains—metaethics,
normative ethics and applied ethics (see table 1).2 This essay is a metaethical analysis of
archaeological ethics. It is neither a study in applied ethics, which would focus on specific
ethical issues or moral dilemmas within the field of archaeology, e.g., reburial, cultural property
rights, nor in normative ethics, which would aim toward the definition—and, thus, the promotion
or advocacy—of specific ethical and/or moral principles, codes, obligations, or responsibilities
that archaeology ought to employ. The objective is to identify two distinct sets of principles and
criteria of value and to discuss the conflict or contradiction between these two axiologies, a
scientific morality and a sociological ethics. These are each analyzed in terms of how they
formalize the ethical relation to another agent and in terms of the pregiven, external criteria of
value or concept of “good” through which responsibilities and obligations are organized.
Table 1: Four Domains or Fields of Study in the Moral Philosophy of Ethics (Moral Ethics)
Metaethics is the philosophical investigation of the nature, source, and meaning of the “Good,” including
right/wrong, in relation to metaphysics; historically metaethics also treats theological definitions of Good in terms of
God and must increasingly consider non-western (& nontheological) cultures as sources of notions of “Good”;
Normative Ethics is the philosophical investigation that seeks to determine practical standards, norms, duties, rules,
obligations, principles, and logics to guide and govern conduct in terms of the “Good;” broaches on the field of
Metaethics in the attempts to systematically formulate notions of Good, Right, Wrong & their expression
Applied Ethics is the investigation of specific controversial, real-world problems so as to resolve these ethical
dilemmas through an application of normative ethics and Metaethics; explores conflicts of/between ethical systems
Regional Ethics is the philosophical term to refer to the ethical issues, problems, and concerns of specific domains
or fields of action, such as of archaeology or medicine, in contrast to ethics in general
Ethics involve not only prescriptions and prohibitions, but focalization (or relation to). By
focalization I refer to the way specific categories of things, persons or intangible idea/ideal
forms, are designated as that with which (and to which) there is an ethical relation. For example,
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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the core of ethical duty or deontics (from Greek deon, meaning duty) posits a relation of the self
to something else as the basis of ethics—for example, God, humanity, sponsors, institutions,
science, or a profession. Ethics is a relation to/with some one, thing, or intangible entity that is
transcendent or external to ethics per se; this focalization is pregiven, or more precisely, given by
axiology (the system of value) to ethics.3 In scientific morality the values that are held by
science as ultimate is typically conceived as truth, but has corollaries in attendant values such as
the production of knowledge/truth and the (altruistic) use of such knowledge/truth for the
objective of improving what is variously identified as mankind, humankind, humanity, all
peoples, human civilization and/or progress (progress of science or progress of human
civilization). In the sociological axiology identified here, the external value that governs and
provides the meaning and telos is a social valorization of cultural communities. It is not “all
peoples,” but rather the idea of particular and determinate group/s that are valorized as the
transcendent “good” to which the morality or ethics of an action must be evaluated. It is the
category of specific and particular social communities versus the category of the totality of all
human communities that constitutes the “good” as a pregiven and external value.
The external value organizes the responsibilities and obligations of the ethical relation,
which is shaped by different moral logics and ethical reasoning. By moral logic I simply refer to
the logic of application and validity, that is, whether the ethics-morals are conceived as
“universal” rules whose validity is transcendent of context or whether they are conceived as
situational and relativist principles of ethical action that are adapted to the specificity of the
contexts of application. The distinction between these two types of moral logic is often treated
as the distinction between normative morals and situational ethics. In the context of this
semantic distinction, the terms “ethics” and “morals” are therefore not synonymous nor
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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overlapping (in contrast to uses where either can reference the field of moral philosophy or of
moral ethics or can be used as the umbrella category in which the other is included).4 By ethical
reasoning I refer to the substantive rationality of the moral principles, for example, whether they
are a form or type of consequentialist or deontological thinking about ethics. In the western
tradition, consequentialist and deontological theories have been opposed, since the former holds
the end result (the telos of action) and the latter the relationship (or the “means”) as primary
principle of ethical reasoning. The next section of the essay defines the scientific morality of
archaeology by showing how it organizes its ethics as a duty in relation to science or the
profession with a normative and universalizing logic and deontological reasoning that is upheld
by the valorization of general good. Subsequently, the essay describes the sociological ethics in
terms of its situationalist logic, consequentialist reasoning, focalization of subjects of research,
and valorization of specific social groups.
Moral Ethics of Science
The clearest expression of a moral ethics of science is found in the three points of the
Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Code of Ethics and the First Principle of the Society
for American Archaeology (SAA) Principles of Archaeological Ethics. The AIA Code offers a
single prescriptive rule (ensure that archaeology is conducted by the “highest standards” and that
its results are made public), a single prohibition (refuse to participate, directly or indirectly, in
illegal activities related to the antiquities market), and a corollary duty (to report illegal and
unethical activities involving looting, profiteering, and cultural property). This moral reasoning
is deontological as it defines the obligation of the archaeologist as a duty to professional
standards. Significantly, since membership in the AIA does not primarily consist of academic
scientists, but other types of professional archaeologists, the phrase, “professional standards,”
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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references the professional use of scientific methods, not the use by a professional (academic)
scientist; it seems, however, that scientific methods and thus professional standards ultimately
have their source in professional academic science. The focalization of the ethical relation is to
the value of “standards” itself, which because of the history of archaeology (as discussed below)
and its placement in opposition to that which is prohibited, is all but expressly defined as
scientific. Significantly it is not (scientific) “truth” itself that is the external criteria of value in
this axiology, but the “highest standards,” which thereby references the conduct of professional
and, thus, scientific archaeology or the science of archaeology, regardless of its institutional
location in academia, government, or business, and situates duty as the primary ethical
imperative.
The SAA also defines its ethics as a deontological morality (duty based) under the
concept of stewardship. The First Principle of the SAA defines Stewardship as the primary
ethic. The principle defines archaeologists as stewards and these as “both caretakers of and
advocates for the archaeological record for the benefit of all people” (SAA 1999: 283, emphasis
added). The duty of stewardship posits an ethical relation to the archaeological record, which is
substantively defined as “care-taking” and “advocacy.” This focalization of creates a scientific
deontics, given that the notion of the archaeological record is not simply the material culture of
the past, but all the supplementary production of notes, drawings, maps, analytical classifications
of materials, and other forms and modes of knowledge that is created in the process of doing
archaeological research. This corpus of documentary and scientific materials is a fundamental
part of the archaeological record. In fact, it is analogous to the surplus value that is added to a
raw product to create a commodity. The archaeological record is just as much, if not more so,
the record of archaeological activity added to the “archaeological” materials of the past. Due to
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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this supplementation, the archaeological record is intrinsically a scientific product (even
commodity). Thus, the significance of the archaeological record is presupposed in terms of
scientific value; this reading is clarified when the code conjoins it with the subsequent clause,
“for the benefit of all people,” which defines the external value to which science itself has moral
and ethical grounding.
This interpretation of the code as a scientific morality is reiterated in a second AIA code,
the Code of Professional Standards, that supplements the statement on ethics. “Because the
archaeological record represents the heritage of all people, it is the responsibility of professional
archaeologists to communicate with the general public” (italics added for emphasis). Merging
these codes, the ethical relation of the archaeologist is to the archaeological record and this
relation is defined as a deontics of care-taking of, advocacy for, and communication about the
archaeological record. The external criteria of value to this scientific morality is a generalized
public, “all people” for whom the record is their heritage. The Register of Professional
Archaeologists (RPA) also reproduces this morality as it specifies additional aspects of the
obligations of archaeological duty. The first principle is the protection and preservation of the
archaeological record by “highest” or “professional” standards.
The duty to the profession of archaeology finds its “goodness” in an external criteria of
value, the benefit of all people. It still needs to be explained how this “professional” duty and
duty to the “profession” how these phrases denote a scientific duty and duty to archaeological
science. How does the phrasing of these codes presuppose a morality of science? After a detour
through a discussion of sociological ethics, the essay returns to the history of archaeology to
explore this question.
Situational Ethics and Sociological Axiology
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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Relativist and sociological ethics in anthropology emerged not so much in opposition to,
as in mediation and reform of, ethics derived from the normative morality of science. A clear
expression is the AAA Statement on Ethics. The Preamble, Introduction and section III.A.1 are
especially relevant. Moral relativism is the philosophical position that ethical/moral norms are
not given universally as transcendent of cultural communities, but rather that morals are
conventions created in and defined by communities. 5 The AAA begins with a promotion of such
moral relativism. The preamble acknowledges that anthropologists “are members of many
different communities, each with its own moral rules or codes...” and that they also have
obligations “as members of other groups, such as the family, religion, and community as well as
the profession … scholarly discipline, wider society, culture, the human species… the
environment… [and] with persons or animals with whom they work”6 In this context
“misunderstandings, conflicts, and the need to make choices among apparently incompatible
values will arise.” Despite this proliferation of different and contrary ethics and values, the
anthropologist is exhorted to struggle “to resolve [conflicts and contradictions of ethics] in ways
compatible with the principles stated here.”
The acknowledgement of the social conventions and construction of morals, leads the
AAA code to the endorsement of a situationalist ethics. This position is promoted over and
against a normative or “universalist” morality based in rules whose application and validity
transcend historically particular contexts: “Because anthropologists can find themselves in
complex situations and subject to more than one code of ethics, the AAA Code of Ethics
provides a framework, not an ironclad formula, for making decisions” (AAA 1998, Introduction
¶2). The situational logic is evident in the language of the code: it is offered as a “framework…
for making decisions” “in ways compatible with the principles stated here”; anthropologists
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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“should be alert to the danger of compromising anthropological ethics” (AAA 1998: §III). The
primacy of the situation and context of action is implicitly acknowledged.
Correlated to this shift to a situationalist ethics is the reduction of the deontological
reasoning. While the code itself is by nature a statement of the deontics of the discipline, three
aspects of the code express the minimization or qualification of a deontological ethics. First, the
rather lengthy detailing of obligations and responsibilities is framed within the implicit primacy
of the situation. Second, there is an explicit dethroning of scientific morality as the ultimate and
absolute axiology. Third, there is the explicit expression of a sociological axiology:
the AAA starts from the position that generating and appropriately utilizing knowledge
(i.e., publishing, teaching, developing programs, and informing policy) of the peoples of
the world, past and present, is a worthy goal; that the generation of anthropological
knowledge is a dynamic process using many different and ever-evolving approaches;
and that for moral and practical reasons, the generation and utilization of knowledge
should be achieved in an ethical manner.
The external value that gives science its significance and reason—the use of knowledge for the
benefit of all people—is recognized as a worthy goal, but is not posited as an absolute value.
Knowledge production must be tempered with “moral and practical reasons” and “achieved in an
ethical manner.” Following the preamble and the introduction (sections I and II, respectively)
the code elaborates an ethic in positive terms. This section specifically defines a sociological
value as primary: “Anthropological researchers have primary ethical obligations to the people,
species, and materials they study and to the people with whom they work. These obligations that
supersede the goal of making new knowledge and can lead to decisions not to undertake or to
discontinue a research project” (AAA 1998: §III.A.1).
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Significantly, the bulleted subpoints of §III.A.1 define the ethical relation to the subjects
of research—i.e., what the AAA code identifies as the “people, species, and materials”—in terms
of obligations that manifest a consequentialist reasoning. The four subpoints are to “avoid harm
or wrong” to subjects, “respect the well-being” of subjects, “work for the long-term
conservation” of records, and establish relationships “that can be beneficial to all parties
involved” (AAA 1998: §III.A.1). These points are reiterated in §III.A.2. as the obligation that
anthropologist must ensure that “research does not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy of the
people with whom they work.” This duty of measuring the consequences for the subjects of
research are extended to issues of respect of anonymity, informed consent, impact of research,
exploitation of knowledge and cultural property rights (§III.A.3-6). In other words, the shift to a
situationalist ethics organized by the valorization of a social group (subjects of research) includes
a move from a straight forward deontic morality to a consequentialist reasoning inhabiting a
deontic or duty based framework. Three comments are necessary.
First, traditional consequentialist ethics have been identified as falling into three types,
These three distinguish the morality of an action in terms of the greater benefit (versus
unfavorable consequences) of the results of action for different actors: ethical egoism is when the
action is more favorable to the agent of the action regardless of effects for others; ethical altruism
is when the results are beneficial to everyone except the agent; utilitarianism is when results
benefit everyone or a majority of people (Fieser 2001a). What kind of consequentialism is
implicated in the anthropological code? Significantly, the ethical relation is to the specific and
particular cultural group/community, species, or (“archaeological, fossil, and historical”) record
with which a given anthropologist conducts research and, thus, the ethical reasoning is in terms
of the consequences to and for that specific subject. The criteria of value for assessing
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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consequences is not the ego, altruistic category of everyone in general, nor a statistical majority
of those involucrated. The consequentialism seems to be of a different, perhaps somewhat
unique, fourth type than the traditional theories.
Second, I refer to this as a restricted consequentialism not only because effects of actions
are assessed in terms of a restricted group of persons, objects, or animals, but because of how
this reasoning is formed within an ethical duty. Consequentialism is historically posed against
deontological theories of ethics. Yet, here this restricted consequentialism is clothed and shaped
within a deontological framework of the duty that anthropologists have to the subjects of
research. This is a “hybrid” ethic in which the reasoning of duty is defined by consequentialism
and the axiology that governs this consequentialism is given by the anthropological duty to the
subjects of research. This ethic can only have coherence as a practical and situationalist logic.
Third, Peter Pels (1999) has made a provocative analysis of the professional ethics of
anthropology (primarily referring to ethnography) as a kind of duplexity. This duplexity is not
duplicity but is rather based on a split in the ethical relation as a duty to the subjects and to the
sponsors of research. While I find the analysis valuable, I also find anthropological ethics to
have more than a dual or “duplex” focalization (see Castañeda 2006). Consider that the AAA
code not only specifies ethical duties to the subjects of research but also to “science and
scholarship” (§III.B), “the public” (§III.C), “students and trainees” (§IV), as well as “funders,
employers” and sponsors (§V). The deontological responsibilities and obligations to each of
these categories of actors is substantively different, primarily because of the difference in the
types and contents of the activities enacted with each of category; teaching in other words is not
the same activity as conducting fieldwork. I further note that interfacing with the public,
colleagues, funding agencies or employers are also not equivalent activities. If ethics is about
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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the determination of the goodness of an act, then to assess ethics it seems pertinent to break
down the “anthropology” or “archaeology” into basic component sets of activities or practices.
Thus, there different ethical duties, responsibilities and obligations would be defined (and are)
toward each category of activity and correlate actors with whom there is an ethical relation. The
AAA code implicitly recognizes the significance of breaking down ethics into component
activities and relations, but within a framework that privileges “research” over all other types and
categories of anthropological activities and, thus, agents to whom there is a responsibility.
This privileging of “research” can be understood as a vestige of the scientific morality
that has primarily inhabited anthropology. Since science is popularly conceived as primarily an
activity of research, its ethics are therefore primarily formulated with regard to that activity. All
other ethical issues—such as of training, teaching, dissemination—are subordinated within the
hierarchy organized by the values of science as research. The history of ethics in archaeology
demonstrates this principle.
When Ethics and Science are the Same: Ethics in the History of
Archaeology
The scientific morality—as a normative, universal, rule driven system—posits a
fundamental relationship between scientific research and ethics. In essence, it holds that to be
scientific is to be ethical: To do (scientific) archaeology is to be ethical; to be ethical in
archaeology is to be scientific. Such a normative theory therefore locates the formal (versus
substantive) governing of conduct with prescriptions and prohibitions as the primary ethical
matter to codify. This is exemplified by the RPA codification of the “shoulds” and “should-nots”
by which the “highest” professional conduct is governed. The unstated corollary of this
scientific morality to conduct research to the highest professional standards is that one is
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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unethical by producing “second-rate” scholarship; it is unethical because it is unprofessional and,
ultimately, unscientific. This points to a huge practical limitation of this normative morals, as
well as its political use as a technique of professional gate-keeping.
Brian Fagan’s (1999) narration of a brief history of archaeology as the emergence of
scientific archaeology illustrates semantic equation of ethics with science. It is a fable in the
sense of a moral story residing in a brief historical account. It is a the Preface of a book on ethics
that recounts how the destruction, looting, and commercial collecting of the archaeological
record by unscientific ancestors in the 19th century became the scientific and ethical preservation
and protection of the record from looters and collectors. Yet, still there is danger:
These were the pioneer days of archaeology, when excavators like Hormuzd Rassam
and Heinrich Schliemann used battering rams, brute force, and hundreds of workmen in
a frenzied search for ancient cities and spectacular artifacts. From these excavations
was born the science of archaeology. They also spawned a terrible legacy — concerted
efforts to loot and rob the past. We may laugh and shudder at the antics of the Layards,
Stephenses, and Schliemanns, but their researches were the foundations of the modern,
scientific archaeology we know today. Their immediate successors were the
redoubtable General Pitt Rivers, Ernst Curtius, A.V. Kidder, Mortimer Wheeler, and
many other men and women who advocated much more precise excavation methods
and taught that excavation was destruction of a finite resource — the archaeological
record... Only one thing has not changed since the days of Layard, Schliemann, and
Wheeler — the inexorable destruction of the archaeological record... In truth, we have
lived with the ravaging of the past so long that we tend often to forget about it, mentally
to put the problem aside... Fortunately, a few archaeologists and concerned citizens
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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have waged a tireless campaign on behalf of the past...encouraging an ethical dialogue
between archaeologists and other interested parties — developers and business interests,
American Indian groups, and even looters and collectors... The Ethics of Collecting
Cultural Property is an important book, for it focuses on ethical dilemmas that confront
not only archaeologists but everyone in society.
The scientific moral is clear. The scientific archaeology of today entails the protection
and preservation of the archaeological record versus the destruction and looting of the past
conducted by or associated with prior, unprofessional archaeology. The “professional” and
“highest standards” of archaeology are the methods of science. To archaeology scientifically is
in itself to be ethical. To this inherent ethical good that science itself enacts is added additional
duties, “to encourage ethical dialogue between archaeologists and other interested parties.” The
broader goal is to benefit “not just the archaeologist, but everyone in society.”
The Scientific Ethics of Espionage: The Greater Good of Nation
In this light, since Fagan mentions the redoubtable Alfred V. Kidder, it is worthwhile to
note an ethical conflict between metaethics systems. Kidder, as chairman of the Maya
archaeology research program sponsored by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, on more
than one occasion proclaimed the ethical integrity of the CIW research program. Upon assuming
his position in 1929 as Director he professed that the research previously directed by Sylvanus G.
Morley between 1913-1929 was conducted “in a manner calculated to create a feeling of
confidence by the Mexican government and people in the good faith of foreign scientific
agencies.” While not specified, the reference is the absence of taking antiquities from México to
USA based museums, as did the previous US-North American archaeologists at Chichén
(Edward H. Thompson); the reference is also to the treatment of Maya workers at Chichén Itzá
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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(see Kidder 1930:96, 99, 1941; Castañeda 1996: 113-122). Indeed, there was one famous
incident in the mid-1920s in which Morley was involved in the returning of an artifact illegally
taken from México, an act in which Morley has also been an unwitting complicit.
What is not clear from Kidder’s statement of professing the ethical integrity of the
research was how he considered the ethics of Morley’s covert espionage conducted under the
guise of archaeology during WWI or the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) sponsored
espionage by the Harvard archaeologist Lothrop during WWII (Harris and Sadler 2003; Price
2000; Castañeda 2005). The CIW continued to sponsor (that is actively and consciously
facilitate) covert military intelligence during WWII by the some of the archaeologists employed
in the Mesoamerican Research Program that Kidder supervised (Price 2000). Kidder was
undoubtedly privy to the fact that archaeologists he supervised, such as Lothrop and other
Mayanists, were conducting espionage sanctioned by the CIW. While Boas’ position on covert
espionage is well known, it does not seem that Kidder made any explicit statement on the issue
which no doubt allowed him to be considered a “neutral” or possible ally to the Boasian block
during the struggle to control the AAA following Boas’ 1919 denouncement of archaeologists
conducting espionage during WWI (Stocking 1968).
To the dismay of many commentators (Pels 1999; Fleuhr-Lobban 2003a, b), the changes
that resulted in the 1998 AAA code of ethics eliminated the normative, absolute moral
prohibition against espionage by anthropologists. In its stead is the responsibility that
“Anthropological researchers [have to] be alert to the danger of compromising anthropological
ethics as a condition to engage in research, yet also be alert to proper demands of good
citizenship or host-guest relations” (AAA 1998 §III). The principles of not doing anything illegal
(in one’s own or host countries; cf. §III introduction) or of misrepresentation (§III.B.2) lose
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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much of the a priori, universalist and transcendental force in the face of the moral relativism,
situational ethics, and restricted consequentialist reasoning that is currently advocated as
professional ethics by the AAA. Anthropologists are obliged to “be willing to make carefully
considered ethical choices and be prepared to make clear the assumptions, facts, and issues on
which those choices are based” (AAA 1998 §II) and to make choices that are “compatible to
AAA principles” (§I). Thus, given conflicts and tensions between types of ethics and
axiologies—and especially considering that a primary objective of the AAA code is to foment
discussion of ethics and ethical problems— the question of espionage conducted under the guise
of archaeology or anthropology should be reopened not to judge but to evaluate and analyze the
ethics that are involved.
In this light, we can see that the conflict revolves not only around the assumption of a
different external criteria of goodness, but a different conception of the focalization of the duty
of the anthropologist. On the one hand there is an ethical relation to the profession of
anthropology combined with a restricted sociological valorization of specific groups and, on the
other hand, there is an ethical duty to science as a profession with an altruistic valorization of the
benefits for the greater good of all people. The ethical difficulty here is to understand how the
altruistic duty to all people can be enlisted to support the conduct of activities as anthropologist
that support the political agenda of a nation. Is this an incoherent and unethical break from the
ethical principle or a shifting of the very substance of the principle?
On the eve of WWII, Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institution of
Washington, expressed a view that illuminates the issue. Note that Bush was Roosevelt’s
appointed director of the war effort collaboration of science, business, and government as well as
the intellectual architect of the National Science Foundation (Bush 1990; Zacchary 2001).
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
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The urge to do something for humanity, by improving its knowledge of its environment,
is so allied to the urge to do something definite to protect one’s country from aggression
that all scientific effort responds to the stimulus. For the scientist … may well regret
deeply that his efforts, so long devoted to an altruistic ideal embracing the whole of
mankind, become limited for a time to a narrower national aim. But he shares in that
primal joy that comes from intense group effort in defense of his home, sublimated it is
true, but just as real as though he stood at the mouth of a cave with a few strong men of
the clan armed with stone axes against a hostile world. (Bush 1940: 4-5).
This statement illustrates how the altruistic good conducted in the name of all people can
be shifted into a utilitarian consequentialism in which a restricted group become the syntagmatic
representation of “all the people.” Regardless whether or not this is an incoherence in the logic
of the scientific morality or if it is an inherent aspect of the normative moral, there is an irony to
be noted: the scientific morality and the sociological-situationalist ethic converge on the
valorization of a restricted group as the external criteria of good—one is the subjects of research
and the other, following Pels (1999) argument might be viewed as the sponsors/funders of
research.
Conflicts in Archaeological Duty: Emergence of Governmentalist Ethics
Government ... is a question not of imposing law on men, but of disposing things: that is
to say, of employing tactics rather than laws, and even of using laws themselves as
tactics -- to arrange things in such a way that, through a certain number of means, such
and such ends may be achieved. (Foucault 1991: 95)
Scientific morality posits a good defined by the production of true and useful knowledge
that will benefit humanity or “all peoples.” Three aspects of this ethic needs to be explicitly
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
17
noted. First, the focal conduct of this ethics is the research process; that is, the “doing of
research” is the ethical substance and issue within the scientific morality; there is very little
problematization of the doing of interpretation and dissemination as ethical issues and questions.
Second, whether formulated as “progress,” the “improvement mankind,”7 or “benefit to all
peoples” this criteria remains the central value in the scientific axiology. Third, as a purely
metaethical principle, this ethic imposes itself on the archaeologist and establishes a relation of
belonging and identification of the archaeologist to the collective whole; that is, it defines a
profession and community of professionals (see AIA 1991). This value still operates in many of
the statements on the ethics of archaeology as a primary, but not the only, criteria of the good for
evaluating the conduct of archaeologists in research relation to the material record of the past.
The SAA Code, for example, expresses this scientific/professional duty as “stewardship”
but adds seven other principles of ethics. Close inspection of the other seven principles,
interestingly reveals that they are mostly corollaries of the first principle in that they specify
responsibility in “professional” conduct. Again, the area of research is the primary substantive
issue. Principle Five, for example, states that Intellectual Property is part of the archaeological
record and, therefore, should be treated under the notion of stewardship not as private property;
this thus reiterates that the benefit is for “all people” not the researcher. Principle Six, Public
Reporting and Publication, holds that archaeologists must publish the results of their research in
a reasonable time and, when so doing, must always take into account the protection of the
archaeological record. Note that this Principle does not consider the content or manner of
publication (i.e., interpretation or dissemination), just its timeliness as part of the responsibility
to “all people” and to other archaeologists. Principle Seven, Records and Preservation, all but
defines the portable materials of research reports, excavation records, and collections as part of
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
18
the in situ archaeological record in order to state that they must be used with responsibility and
care aimed, again, at the protection of the immovable record. This extends the category of
objects for whose management the archaeologist is responsible. Principle Eight, Training and
Resources, reiterates the Scientific Rule of archaeological ethics whereby one must have
adequate training, experience and facilities to conduct research according to the principles of
ethics and professional standards. In other words, in order to identify one-self as an
archaeologist one must govern one’s conduct according to the disciplinary methods of the
science and these ethical principles of responsibility. Principle Three, reiterates the corollary
prohibition that makes private gain from commercialization (and ancillary activities) unethical.
This principle offers a negative image for the positive identification of individual’s as an
archaeologist and part of the archaeological community.
Only Principles Two, Accountability, and Four, Public Education and Outreach, add
something substantially different to the ethics of archaeology than what has been detailed above.
These add (to the criteria of the things of the archaeological record) non-archaeologist “other
persons” as focalizations of and for the governing of archaeological conduct. This expresses a
elements of a shift from a scientific morality to a situational ethics of duty. Further, the shift of
language of the SAA Code (from that of responsibility cast in terms of prohibitions and
prescriptions to a language of principles) is an important move that introduces contextualist
criteria within a normative ethics that corresponds to a sociological, not scientific, axiology.
Nonetheless, Principle Four defines the value of public education and outreach in terms
of the preservation, protection, and interpretation of the archaeological record. Specifically, this
principle divides into three prescriptive sub clauses. Archaeologists should: “enlist public
support for the stewardship of the archaeological record; explain and promote the use of
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
19
archaeological methods and techniques in understanding human behavior and culture; and
communicate archaeological interpretations of the past.” Regardless of any altruistic intentions
for the outreach and education of the public to be a goal and ethical value in itself, the wording
reveals that the publics of archaeology (provisionally defined in this principle) are a means to an
end. The responsibility to the public is a means, via the tactical procedures of outreach and
education, by which the scientific goal of preservation and protection of the archaeological
record is attained. Given the first principle of stewardship, this ethical goal is, once again, for
the scientific value of benefit to all peoples. The Principle of Accountability, with its minimal
wording, places this function partially — and only partially — outside of the self-same
community of science/archaeology in the hands of a generic “public accountability.” Further,
this function is all but explicitly defined in terms of the conduct of research: the clause “with the
goal of establishing a working relationship that can be beneficial to all parties involved” suggests
the various communities that archaeologists engage in excavation; immediate referents that come
to mind are the labor communities, social communities within the vicinity of the excavated site,
cultural communities that are descendents of the excavated past, and encompassing political
communities such as the nation or nation-state, but also students, employers, and funding agents.
This principle, thus, refers back to the management and control of the archaeological record but
now in a sociologically modified scientific axiology. It is also significant to note that
accountability is, therefore, not in terms of the interpretation or dissemination of archaeological
practice.
The shift towards relativism and situational norms entails a re-definition of the good from
“absolutist” to “contextualist” criteria. But, it is less a move away from scientific morality than a
shifting of its basis from an ethical law imposed to an elaboration of the normative rule in terms
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
20
of a self-government of one’s conduct. Archaeological codifications are often formulated in two
distinct but supplementary codes that reflect this double orientation.
The AIA, for example, has a three point Code of Ethics (discussed above) that expresses
the scientific morality and a more elaborate Code of Professional Standards that expresses a
governmental ethic of duty. The governmental ethic takes shape as a tri-partite “responsibility”:
to govern one’s conduct, to manage the archaeological record, to engage the public. In the
Preamble of the latter, the AIA states that “archaeological research must often balance competing
ethical principles [and therefore this code] “does not seek to legislate all aspects of professional
behavior and it realizes the conflicts embedded in many of the issues addressed” (AIA 1994).
Not only is this a rejection of metaethical issues, but it is a truncation of the goal of normative
ethics “to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct” (Fieser 2001). In lieu
of such adjudicating or law-imposing universal, transcendent norms, a governmental ethic is
instituted in the AIA Code of Professional Standards by which the duty of the archaeologist is to
govern oneself scientifically/professionally in relation, not only to things (the archaeological
record) but to one’s self-same community (colleagues) and to other persons (publics).
The Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) also has two separate and
supplementary codes. At first glance it seems be different logic that differentiates the logic and
the domains of this Governmental Ethic into sets of principles. On the one hand, the RPA Code
of Conduct charts responsibilities into prescriptions and prohibitions of duty — i.e., “An
Archaeologist Shall” and “An Archaeologist Shall Not” — into three categories. These are
responsibilities to: the public (RPA CC §I), to colleagues, employees, and students (§II), and to
employers and clients (§III). Curiously, we might ask, why are funding agencies that are not
employers not also included in this expanded list of social actors to whom archaeologists are
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
21
responsible? In any case, the responsibilities in §II and §III all revolve around the conduct of
research. Within the larger ethical context of the scientific value given to the archaeological
record, this becomes a governmental use of other persons not as an end in themselves but as
means. In turn, the wording of responsibility to a) the public embodies the ethical Rule of
Science: Of the five prescriptive duties to the public, two concern illegal/unethical activity
(§I.1.1.d and e) and one concerns the mandate to protect the record (§I.1.1.b). The four
prohibitions under responsibility to the public holds that an archaeologist shall not: a) engage in
illegal/unethical activities involving archaeology; b) give professional opinion or legal testimony
without being thoroughly informed; c) fraud, dishonesty, deceit, misrepresentation involving
archaeology; and d) research for which one is not qualified to conduct. Two of the five
prescriptive clauses have introduce a sociological value or grounding: §I1.1.a states a
responsibility to the public-at-large (“all peoples”) in terms of dissemination and §I1.1.1c states a
responsibility to specific stake-holders in terms that explicitly reference archaeological research
practice. To be sure, the wording is ambiguous (see below) such that one could interpret this last
clause (§I1.1.c) to also imply responsibility in terms of interpretation and dissemination.
On the other hand, the RPA Standards of Professional Performance details responsibility
and duties in relation to the archaeological record. It is an ethic of scientific duty in the conduct
of research. It is governmentalist to the extent that the management of one-self in relation to the
record and of the things of the record are all means to the more fundamental teleology of
scientific values (i.e., protecting/preserving the archaeological record, the scientific production of
knowledge, the benefit of all peoples).8 Of the six standards of research performance, the sixth
concerns dissemination: “the archaeologist has the responsibility for appropriate dissemination
of the results of her/his research to the appropriate constituencies with reasonable dispatch.”
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
22
Notice that the word “constituency” is precisely chosen over many possible other words, such as
public/s and stakeholders to indicate a relation of the individual to the “self” or community of
self-same individuals. Thus, the five clauses define this duty as the responsibility to share
information with professional colleagues (§6.1-6.3), employers or clients (§6.4) and the news
media (§6.5).
In the Code of Professional Performance neither general nor specific publics, stakeholders or other groups are listed as social agents to whom archaeologists have a responsibility to
share information. Such responsibility, which is listed under the Code of Conduct, is not
considered a dimension of scientific, professional “research performance.” The ethics of
governing one’s own conduct in relation to one’s self and self-same community is separated
from the governing of conduct in relation to other persons. Further, the duty to share or
disseminate knowledge does not entail any responsibility over the nature, quality, substance,
formal content, or disseminating means/media of the information, knowledge, or “results of
research.”
Thus, to return to the RPA responsibility to the public, there is a mandate to have both a
“commitment to represent Archaeology and its research results to the public in a responsible
manner” (§I.1.1.a)9 and to “be sensitive to and respect the legitimate concerns of groups whose
cultural histories are the subjects of archaeological investigations” (§I.1.1.c). While grounding
the scientific norm and value with a connection to the sociological and ethnographic, these
clauses remain vague and imprecise. Taken together they could be interpreted to offer an
important consideration of ethical issues beyond the research process itself. This is a possibility
that must be exploited (see below), even if it is not elaborated into an explicit principle by any
ethical codification. For despite this possibility, there is a linguistic-rhetorical operation here
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
23
that creates a very nuanced differentiation between kinds of publics (or other persons to which
one is responsible) and between rendering of research as a zone of responsibility and the
exclusion of interpretation and dissemination as ethical issues.
This double gap or exclusion is significant. It is predicated on a conceptual distinction
and linguistic-rhetorical use of the word “public”: The word public is almost always used
generically to refer to the most encompassing collectivity. As such it references the over-arching
scientific value of “all peoples.” This generic public-at-large is a value governing research as an
end not as a means. In contrast, a variety of other possible phrases are used to reference the
specific “publics” or cultural groups and social agents that are concretely and materially involved
in research. This is evident in the second SAA Principle on Accountability which states the
obligation to “acknowledge public accountability” and “to consult with affected group(s) with
goal of establishing a working relationship.” These specific groups do not represent an ethical
value or embody an axiology so much as they function as the means to an end; that is, the diverse
cultural stake-holders, employees, students, clients, employers, funding agencies, and other
“specific publics” are means to attain the overall scientific agenda of benefit to “all peoples.”
The Fourth SAA Principle on Public Education and Outreach clarifies this governmental
functioning. First, “public/s” in this principle is defined as a means to facilitate and achieve
stewardship — protection and preservation of the record. Second, the notion of “publics” is here
— and not in the Principle on Accountability — provisionally defined as a plurality of groups.
Significantly, among this list of “specific publics” is the “general public”: In other words, there
are two radically distinct concepts that do not form a set or series but a hierarchized opposition.
The “general public” refers to and embodies a value, unlike the specific publics that are
sociologically real groups that do not embody or reference the transcendental value of “all
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
24
peoples.” In SAA Principle Two the “general public” is the value of accountability. In SAA
Principle Four specific publics are the recipients of certain behaviors (education and outreach)
calculated and conceived to “support stewardship,” “explain and promote archaeological
methods,” and “communicate archaeological interpretations.” Specific publics, stake-holders,
social groups, cultural communities, and other persons therefore form a means to achieve the
value of benefit for (and thus “accountability by”) the generic transcendental public of “all
peoples.”
Other persons are therefore included in ethical codes of archaeology as “things to be
disposed of,” that is, as “things” to be governed and managed along with material objects and
one’s own conduct as per Foucault’s minimalist definition of governmentality above. The
recognition of the governmentality of archaeological ethics embodied in various codes is indeed
troublesome. For clearly, these codes to do not begin from the Kantian imperative to treat other
persons as an end in themselves. Indeed, there seems to be a formal, if also hidden contradiction.
This is ironic and paradoxical, given that the introduction of responsibility to other persons stems
as an ethical valorization of publics, stakeholders and descendents implicated in a restricted
consequentialist reasoning.
Further, the AAA Ethics ambiguously sanctions this paradox with its mandate that
“anthropological researchers have primary ethical obligations to the people, species, and
materials they study and to the people with whom they work... [and] include[s]... [the obligation]
to work for the long-term conservation of the archaeological, fossil, and historical records”
(AAA 1998: §III.A.1). What this creates, in a manner that does not obtain for ethnography/ers,
is an ambivalence in ethical responsibility to “things” and “people.” This dual focalization of the
ethical relation—or, what Pels (1999) would call duplexity—presents a series of dilemmas and
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
25
problems within applied ethics. The dilemmas are based, at least partially, on actual and
potential contradictions between: an obligation to material objects of the archaeological record
for the sake of the generic public within a scientific axiology; and the obligation to specific
publics (which may also stake claims of stewardship on these objects) to respect their different
value systems, including those concepts of proprietary relations, within a sociological valuesystem.
No doubt there are cases and situations where the two different obligations do not come
into conflict. For example, in those research contexts in which the specific public is not socially
mobilized into a strong political community that can both advocate its rights and that even has a
unified conception of these cultural property rights over the archaeological record (see Castillo
Cocom 2002; Castañeda and Castillo Cocom 2002). When these two responsibilities do conflict,
or are anticipated to conflict, there seem to be two actually existing ethical ways out of this
(political, ethical, social, and cultural) problem.
Two Paths
In stating that there are two actually existing ethical paths to take, I am expressly
excluding some real-life resolutions. For example the creation of legal codes, such as NAGPRA,
are fundamentally political and juridical solutions to ethical and moral issues. As juridical
solutions (whether or not they actually attain their objectives) to political problems occurring in
the public spheres of society and culture, they become moral rule, not a question of situational
ethics.
One path is carved practically in and through real contexts of doing research. It is an
approach that keys on, yet enlarges, the difference between the two notions of publics. In
mediating the double obligation of responsibility to the archaeological record and to specific
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
26
publics associated with it, this approach, on the one hand, focuses attention on the doing of
research as the most crucial ethical zone of archaeological activity. On the other hand, this
approach takes very seriously the SAA Principle of Public Education and Outreach and applies it
as the ethical modality by which reconcile the double obligation. In other words, ongoing
education for and outreach are built into research as a way to incorporate the specific publics into
archaeological research and, more broadly, into the goals of stewardship and accountability. As
a strategy of educating the other into the scientific axiology of values, methods, and
interpretations, there is, however, a risk of this outreach going beyond the simple negotiation of
interest groups. Indeed, a tacit or hidden goal of education, especially in practice, is the
transformation of the perspectives, attitudes, expectations, claims, concepts, and understandings
of the specific publics, here about their material pasts. Educational systems, in fact, are powerful
instruments of governmentality that shape and remake the consciousness of subjects. Thus, the
reconciliation of the double obligations occurs less through negotiation, mediation, dialogical
exchange; when effective, the educational outreach operates to preclude contestation over the
material past by reformulating the interests and motivations of specific publics to create greater
concurrence with scientific and/or professional values.
In short, this solution risks being an even more bald governmentality based in an
instrumentalization of other persons hidden by “goodwill.” The crucial factor to consider here is
the role of paternalism in the attitude of the individual archaeologists involved in any given
research endeavor. Paternalism occurs when there is a prior assumption of the specific publics as
constituted by a lack that demands help. In other words, the specific publics are marked with an
otherness defined within hierarchical relation as “inferior.” They are Other. What has been
identified in studies about othering is that the assumption of the otherness of the other as a
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
27
lack/inferiority allows for there to be instituted a giving that seeks to compensate for and
“improve” the other. The nature, content, and form of the giving both enlarges the hierarchical
difference between self and other (in whatever substantial terms they exist) and assuages the
ethical-moral anxiety of the giver with feelings of altruism. The altruism is false precisely
because the real conditions of sociopolitical subordination are not changed for the better, but
strengthened; further, the relationship of paternalist giving in the guise of ethical goodwill is also
reproduced and propagated.
Thus, in governmentalist ethic of duty, this paternalism and goodwill can function to
mask the instrumentalization of specific publics and the scientific axiology that governs the
public education and outreach. It should be noted that paternalism and othering are not discussed
in statements on ethics in anthropology. They are however the target of significant and
voluminous political critiques and sociocultural analyses. These commentaries, it should be
noted, are mostly aimed at the “results of research,” that is the interpretations, knowledges,
understandings, languages, and rhetorics of anthropological discourses. No doubt many of these
critiques and analyses assume, embody, or claim to be ethical critiques as well. Yet, for the most
part they are not ethical analyses—analyses of ethics—but are rather cultural analyses of the
political effects, consequences or implications of knowledge, discourses, and practices. Thus, to
reiterate, there is, a need to think through the ethics of interpretation and dissemination beyond
the political critique and analysis of paternalism, othering, and related forms of “discursive”
subordination. Yet, this concern for the ethical definitively points out the urgent need to analyze
paternalism and othering in the conduct of archaeological research not only as political and
cultural issues, but explicitly as a problem of ethics.
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
28
In summary, then, this path toward reconciliation of the obligations toward the
archaeological record and to the cultural communities that actively claim it as their past is
fraught with dangers. At its best, it should be noted, this path assumes an ethics of dialogue and
exchange between archaeology and specific publics. The practical problem or difficulty within
this modality of ethics, is to enact this dialogical ethics of interaction within a program of
education and outreach that does not slip into forms of paternalism.
There is, however, another path to take. This path is charted out in the codification of
ethics. Stemming from the need to change the language, terms, rhetorics, substances, and
relations of the ethical codes of archaeological morality (not to mention the actual conception
and practice of archaeology itself), the WAC First Code of Ethics effectively displaces the
scientific value of the generic public of “all peoples.”10 Substituting in its place is an ethical
privileging (or valorization) of specific publics as the center of its sociological axiology. In other
words, the WAC code, like the AAA code identifies a restricted focalization to specific groups as
the primary ethical relation.
In the face of the potential reversion of this ethics to a governmental ethics of
professional self-making, this code divides into “Principles to Abide by” and “Rules to Abide
by.” The Principles are noteworthy for its use of language. In turn it is both vague and specific:
“Members agree that they have obligations to indigenous peoples and that they shall abide by the
following [eight] principles” of which six are predicated on the phrase “to acknowledge”; the
seventh deploys “to establish” and the eighth “to seek.” The use of “to acknowledge”
strategically and dramatically changes the ethical substance from an instrumental means-end
relationship to a relation of respect.
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
29
The phrasing in terms of acknowledgement might thus seem vague, especially in contrast
to the more tangible abstractions of normative rules (i.e., shall/shall not, obligations,
responsibilities). However it references a very precise relation and content of respect within the
formal abstractions of responsibility and duties. Further, the content of these eight principles all
hinge on the value of the archaeological past to Indigenous groups. They specify precise areas of
respect within the responsibility over, or for, objects that is subordinated to a responsibility to
others. In contrast to the Fourth SAA Principle, “public accountability” is substituted by
“respect” and transformed into an aspect of respect just as real, social groups substitute for an
idealized value of a generic public. This formulation therefore displaces the duties of the
archaeologist toward objects defined in the name of a larger good (science and all people).
Beyond and otherwise than the scientific morality, this ethics is based on a relation of the
archaeologist, not to the objects of the archaeological record, but to other persons, that is to
specific social groups. The archaeological record becomes the means and mediator — not the
end or telos — of a relation of responsibility to others. Similarly, other persons are no longer
instrumentalized as the means to be managed or social obligations to be governed in order to
achieve the agenda of science. In turn, this value is implicitly defined substantively, by the
language of the First Code, as a “for the other” and defined formally as a communicative “beingwith” and “being-together.”11
In turning to the WAC “Rules to Abide by” that comprise the second part of the First
Code of Ethics, there are two important conceptual changes from the other codes of ethics
already discussed. First, there is the shift from the idealized value of the generic public to the
valorization of specific publics as real, social groups. Second, there is a change of perspective in
the conception of the domains of ethics within archaeology. Specifically, WAC “Members agree
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
30
that they will adhere to the following rules prior to, during and after their investigations.”
Although the pivotal axis of the doing of research remains the unquestioned center of these rules,
there is a recognition that archaeological activities “before” and “after” research are ethical
matters. Of the seven rules, however, only one comes close to dealing with what has been called
in this essay the doing of interpretation and dissemination.
Rule #4 states that “members shall ensure that the results of their work are presented with
deference and respect to the identified indigenous peoples.” At once this subclause statement is
both woefully little and significantly large. It is “little” because it is only one statement whose
language is subtle, minimalist, and, perhaps, therefore for some readers, vague, ambiguous or illdefined. It is not clear, for example, whether the word “presented” refers to substantive contents
and rhetorical forms of interpretation or the means and media of dissemination, or all of these
possibilities. It is “large” since it is the only explicit statement that concerns interpretation and
dissemination beyond and outside of the doing of the archaeological research. Further, it is
expressed strongly as a rule and duty, not in the “weak” language of responsibility or obligation.
It raises, however, an immediate question: Is this solitary rule sufficient to think through the
ethics of interpretation and dissemination?
Conclusion
The intricate and mutual interweaving of politics and ethics is not a secret. Pels (1999)
even defines his concept of “epistemological doubling” in anthropological ethics in terms of how
politics uses ethics to legitimize and or mask its actions and how ethics, while claiming
dissociation from politics, requires the formation of consensus and conventions through politics.
Often, quite simply as Cassell and Jacobs note (n.d. ¶2), “the concept of ethics is used as a
weapon: my beliefs differ from yours, therefore you are unethical.” In the writing of the history
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
31
of anthropology and in certain schools of cultural analysis, critique and engagement, the inverse
happens: the analysis of politics serves and substitutes for the ethical analysis. Your actions,
choices, language, and discourse have or had these “negative” results, effects, implications,
meanings, and consequences for a X cultural group, therefore you are unethical and immoral.
In the contemporary context in which diverse stakeholders and descendent communities
contest the rights of professional archaeology over diverse aspects of culture and cultural
heritage by effectively claiming authority and property rights over such heritage, it becomes all
the more important to differentiate ethical analysis (the analysis of ethics) from cultural analysis
of political effects, implications, processes, and consequences. This is not to deny or fudge over
the fact that politics and ethics are linked. The point is quite simply that an analysis of ethics is
not the same thing as a (cultural) analysis of politics. They require different concepts, tools, and
data.
Yet, too often analysis of cultural politics often passes as or is interpreted to be an critical
evaluation and assessment of the ethics and morals of those who are the subjects of study. This
confusion and conflation is what produces strong, machiavellian antagonisms amongst different
archaeologists and between archaeologists, stakeholders, descendent communities. As an
example, my own study of the social of archaeological discourses about the Maya in which
certain interpretations are associated with political discourses (Castañeda 1996) is in no way an
analysis, or evaluation, of the ethics or the morality of either archaeology or of archaeologists.
Yet, this and similar studies (e.g., El-Haj ; ) might be perceived as a precisely such an
ethical/moral critique.
There are two problems here, in which the second builds from the first. On the one hand,
as the ethics of the broader discipline and of the subfield of archaeology changes and becomes
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
32
more explicitly concerned with ethics, we are only beginning to develop the tools by which to
make an ethical analysis of ethics. On the other hand, while questions of representation of
cultures has been problematized as a moral concern, primarily in ethnography (e.g., Pels 1999;
Battaglia ), but also in archaeology, interpretation per se has not been acknowledged as an ethical
issue in either the discipline as a whole or in the subfield of archaeology. Thus, the present
analysis of archaeological ethics aims to contribute toolkit of issues and concepts with regard to
the first problem and to offer preliminary considerations with regard to the second issue.
Endnotes
1
A limited exception is Wylie (2003) who briefly introduces deontological and consequentialist
theories to archaeologists as concepts.
2
Based on Fieser (2001b). Lacey (1993: 66-69) points out that this three-part field of study also
goes by the names of “ethics” and “morals” as well as “moral philosophy” in the
English/analytical tradition of philosophy. He further notes that the distinction between
metaethics and normative ethics are also known as the difference between “ethics” versus
“morals,” “metaethics” versus “ethics,” or “philosophical ethics” versus “normative ethics.”
Lacey situates a third field of “descriptive ethics” as borderline philosophy, almost social science
and seems to correlate it to “applied ethics” in the Anglo-American tradition. See Critchley
(2001) on the relationships between Continental versus Analytical philosophical traditions.
3
In philosophy, axiology (the study of values) can be approached as field of study “within”
ethics or as an intersecting, but separate domain of inquiry.
4
I follow Bauman (1993) on the distinction betweeen morals, non-moral ethics, and a-moral
ethics, the latter which is associated with Emmanuel Levinas (1987, 1998).
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
33
5
See Spiro 1992 on the conflation moral, cultural and epistemological relativisms.
6
Note that “objects” or the “material culture” with which some anthropologists (i.e.,
archaeologists) work was not included in the preamble. This absence is corrected #3 of a list of
obligations in §III.A.1., which states the obligation “to work for the long-term conservation of
the archaeological, fossil, and historical records.”
7
Consider, for example, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which was created in 1902 as
one of the first non-goverment and non-university research institutions of the USA.
The
scientific mission of the CIW is defined in part as “the investigation, research and discovery, and
the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind” (CIW 1902).
8
In brief paraphrase, these standards include obligations: §I to adequately prepare for research;
§II to follow the scientific plan of research; §III to conduct research with minimum standards for
the collecting of specimens, the recording of uncollected data, description of methods, notetaking, and recording of information; §IV to responsibly manage specimens during research; §V
to responsibly deposit collections for storage; and §VI to appropriately disseminate results of
research.
9
This phrasing was incorporated into the 1998 AAA Ethics in §III.A.1.(iv).
10
The WAC First Code of Ethics ends with the clarification that it extends and supplements
WAC adoption of the 1989 Vermillon Accord at the South Dakota Inter-Congress.
11
The language choice in the sentence above might be rarified, but is necessary. It points to a
metaethical ambiguity. This ethics borders between the a-moral ethics of Emmanuel Levinas
(“for the other”) and an ontological ethics that is associated with Heidegger (“being-with” and
“being-together-with-being”). See Levinas (1987, 1998), Bauman (1993), Critchley (1999).
What is Ethical in Archaeology?
34
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